The new Dante, with his eff-you attitude, lanky young physique and rather Shoreditch haircut, was certainly a bold reinvention. When he was unveiled at TGS last year, developer Ninja Theory was justifiably nervous, worried about fans’ reactions to the change. (Because gamers love change, right?)
Well, they’re not nervous anymore. “I’m not nervous now because I think so many people reacted badly to that that the only way is up, really,” says Tameem Antoniades, developer Ninja Theory’s main Creative Dude, smiling wryly. “We’re showing very little so far – we’re showing the combat side of things, but only a subset.I’m hoping that we’re showing that we have a good handle on the thing that gamers care most about with DmC, and that’s the combat. We’re showing that it has the Devil May Cry feel.”
DmC’s Gamescom demo consists of a very brief tour through a distorted modern city, as Dante slices up demons that spawn from the floor and walls. The look is very contemporary, but there’s an element of the Gothic grandeur that has traditionally characterised the Devil May Cry series; modern European cities have a lot of Gothic elements, after all. There’s a lot of colour and light, in stark contrast to the dark and ominous castles that we’re used to.
Dante fights, as always, with a combination of guns and rather OTT close-up weapons. Fighting looks fluid, with long, airborne combos and plenty of quick weapon and stance changes, but it’s not easy to see how all the different weapons slot together from watching the demo alone. It looks accessible, but not necessarily simplistic. Dante himself is rawer, more aggressive, fighting without the too-cool-to-handle finesse of his older form.
The depth will come from the Angel and Devil modes, which essentially triple Dante’s repertoire of moves and weapons. If you hold one of the triggers down, it modifies the face buttons, making Dante pull off different moves. Devil powers let you send a grapple shooting out towards enemies, pulling them back towards you for an aerial combo; angel powers, we’re told, are more related to traversal, letting you zoom around the map.
There are specific angel and devil weapons as well, easily switchable via the D-pad. No longer will you have to dive into menus to customise your arsenal. We see a glimmering scythe as an angel weapon, and the aforementioned grapple from the devil side, alongside two different sets of dual pistols.
There’s a big emphasis on aerial combat – getting enemies up above ground, and then keeping them there with long combos. A Devil Trigger ability lets Dante slam the ground and suddenly change the world’s gravity, leaving enemies floating ineffectually through the air, ready to be sliced to pieces. As it currently stands, the combat looks more DMC4 than DMC3 to me, but we’re only being shown a very small subset of moves and weapons. CapcomJapan Producer Motohiro Eshiro disagrees, though: “It doesn’t feel similar to either 3 or 4, it feels fresh – I don’t think it’s directly comparable.”
“It’s got a different flavour because we do encourage a lot more range, more chaining of moves, and more aerial combat,” agrees Ninja Theory’s Tameem. But the real point of differentiation is the world itself, which twists and distorts itself to thwart Dante’s efforts. Platforms suddenly shoot off into the distance, passageways and alleys suddenly close themselves off, demons spawn from doorways. The idea is that there is a parallel world to our own, Limbo, which is controlled entirely by demonic forces – forces that Dante couldn’t care less about. It turns the DmC theme of demonic control from something figurative into something very literal.
As for Dante himself, Ninja Theory is feeling more comfortable with him now. He’s a different man from the one we know and respect – younger, less refined, but no less sardonic. He’s still got that black sense of humour. “We did want him to feel more contemporary, more Raging Bull than Rocky 3,” says Tameem. “Dante’s kind of like an outcast in this story, he lives on the periphery of society. We’ve found a good balance of a young Dante who is pissed off, but still retains that wit, that black humour. He’s not emo – he’s never been emo! – he’s just so disaffected and disassociated with society that he just doesn’t give a shit about it. He has no fear, and no respect for authority, particularly not the demonic authority that runs the world.”
Gamescom offered us only the briefest glimpse of DmC. We couldn’t really explore the depth of the combat, and we couldn’t see much of this twisted world that Ninja Theory is creating. Nor did we see anything of the story, or the cinematic direction – two things that the developer’s fans would point out as its strengths. What we did see was a certainty and a unity of vision that suggests Ninja Theory is very confident with this franchise, and confident that the game will speak for itself when it comes out next year.
